


A Twisted Destiny: Cirque Du Freak

by Tycusha



Category: The Saga of Darren Shan - Darren Shan
Genre: A twisted destiny, Gen, cirque du freak series, cirque du freak spinoff, friendship gone wrong, vampire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1450111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tycusha/pseuds/Tycusha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darren was too late to save Steve from Madam Octa's poison. He died. Yet Darren still had to go with Mr. Crepsley, since he had already agreed to being blooded. <br/>How much will Des Tiny change the future by an unseen death of Steve? Who is Des Tiny going to pick that would have such an impact on Darren as Steve did? <br/>Only time will tell...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Prologue **  
**

I’m Darren Shan, a half vampire. Of course, I wasn’t born this way. No vampires are _born_ , they’re _blooded_. Before all of this happened, I was an ordinary kid with ordinary parents and an ordinary sister, but now here I am. Faked my death and fled home with the vampire who blooded me—Mr. Crepsley.

As for how I got into this situation was due to my love of spiders. My best friend, Steve Leopard—his last name was actually Leonard, but Leopard was a nickname—was able to get tickets to a freakshow by the name of Cirque Du Freak. I won the extra ticket. Went with him to the show. While we were there Steve recognized the vampire as he performed, but I was more interested in his performing spider—Madam Octa.

Right after the show, I decided to stick around to see what Steve was up to. That’s where I learned what Mr. Crepsley was thanks to Steve reading a book about vampires. Steve pleaded with him to make him a vampire. Mr. Crepsley tasted his blood, but went no further due to saying that Steve had evil in his veins. Steve became enraged and promised revenge on the vampire.

Later, I snuck back to the cirque during the early morning hours and made off with the deadly spider. I was able to connect mentally with Madam Octa. Able to train with her and perform an extent of what Mr. Crepsley did. Everything went well until Steve came over one day unexpectedly. I showed him the spider. Did some tricks to show off. Then at the worst timing possible, Annie—my sister—walked in. Right when the spider was over Steve’s neck!

I lost concentration. The spider bit. Steve went into a coma state. I was able to convince Annie not to tell mom and dad about the spider—to just say it was something that crawled in through my open window while we were out of the room—but that didn’t help Steve.

My parents took him to the hospital. Called his mom. She blamed me for killing her poor Steve. When I arrived back home I took Madam Octa’s cage and hurled it out the window where Mr. Crepsley grabbed her and made off with her back to the cirque.

I hunted down the vampire. Demanding him give me an antidote to help cure Steve of his state. After some time of persuasion, Mr. Crepsley agreed. The only problem was I had to become his assistant, and that meant becoming a half-vampire!

He tested my blood. Said it was acceptable and blooded me. To blood a human you had to connect your fingertips together—the vampire who did the blooding would stab your fingertips with their nails to draw blood—and let the two bloods mix.

Soon after we started towards the hospital, but by time we arrived it was too late for the antidote.

Steve died, and it was all my fault.

Afterwards I refused to go with Mr. Crepsley. I wanted to stay with my family. He didn’t get to hold up his deal, so I didn’t have to hold up mine. But my mind changed when I noticed what the vampric blood in my veins was doing. I had drank blood from my friend’s knee at school—lucky me played it off. I nearly dug into my sister’s neck when she was getting a shower. Eventually I decided that the vampire was right. I had to leave my home and go with him so I could learn how to control my new hunger for blood.

We faked my death by breaking my neck and throwing me out my bedroom window. I was buried. Dug up that night. Fled my town and went out into the world with the man who had torn me from my ordinary life.

**All because of a stupid spider.**


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharing a tent with a Snake-boy. Feeding a beast raw meat. All these have become quite normal to young Darren Shan--a half vampire.  
> But what happens when they meet a young town boy who wants to join the cirque with them?

Chapter One   
I woke up in the early hours of the morning—it was still dark out, so the sun hadn’t risen yet—thanks to Evra’s pet snake slithering close by my hammock.

Evra was my roommate. He was a _snake boy_ that was one of the acts of the show. From what I understood, he was normally around the end of the show. His snake would creep into the audience right when they were thinking the show was over to help give them a final scare and a night they wouldn’t soon forget.

He was still fast asleep, and so was his snake—though it had a habit of sleep slithering and often startled me when it did so. I sat up in my hammock. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes when I noticed a tall, thin shape quickly walk past the tent. I knew by the shadow it was Mr. Crepsley—his clothing and hair’s shadow gave him away, same with his walk—and I left the vampire be to whatever he was going off to do.

A few hours later the sun rose, and the camp began to get active. Evra woke a few minutes later, and we started with our daily shores.

We didn’t have a show tonight—we had just arrived here the night before, and we had to get prepared for the show tomorrow night. Mr. Tall—the leader of the cirque—always decided where we would be going, but he never told anyone until we started out (to be honest, I don’t think he knew until we were on the road!).

Me and Evra started with our daily chores. They were never anything too big, and I think that’s because we were the two youngest that traveled with the cirque. We started off with feeding the wolfman—he was one of the first acts of the night. A true beast. I’ve heard that he was half man-half wolf, but I was never sure if the rumors were true.

“Hey, Darren,” Evra said in a hushed tone, and then he motioned at one of the nearby vans. “Looks like we have a little guest.”

I looked over to where he had motioned, and noticed a small form quickly duck back behind the van. “Should we tell Mr. Tall?” By time I looked back at Evra he was already heading over to feed the wolfman.

“I doubt he’d care much. I think it’s just a curious kid from the town. Should we give him the scare off?” He threw a piece of meat to the wolfman.

“I guess we could.” The kid ducked as I turned around again. “He might be too easy of a scare though. He keeps jumping back every time I turn around and look his way.”

“Maybe, but it could still be fun, right?” Evra said as he tossed the last bit of meat to the wolfman—who gobbled all the food almost as quickly as Evra threw it.

I followed Evra around the camp and towards where the boy had been hiding. We eventually decided to hide in some of the brush on the side of the camp.

“Do you see him?” Evra asked as he squinted and searched for the boy.

“Not a bit. He must have hightailed it when we went deeper into camp.” Just as the words exited my lips I heard twigs crack behind me. Evra opened his mouth to respond to my comment, but I quickly hushed him. He caught on to what I heard and mouthed to me “Small animal?”

I shook my head and mouthed “Bigger.” I continued listening, but the sound kept jumping. One second it was to out left, the next to our right. My hearing was better than a humans, but I still couldn’t place what it was. I turned back and mouthed back to Evra “Possible enemy?”

Right as he was about to respond, a loud BOO came from behind us. We both jumped back—scrambling over each other in the process. Unsure how someone—or something—had managed to sneak up on us. From behind at that!  
“Ha! You should’ve seen your faces! Priceless!”

Me and Evra looked back at each other with confused expressions. Then back at the kid that had been watching us earlier. How did he manage to trick us like that? His footsteps were coming from in front of us, not behind. Unless...someone else was around here as well!

“Hope I didn’t scare you two too bad, but your faces were worth it!” he laughed—he had a weird food smell to him, but it wasn’t anything bad, just unusual. He held out a hand to both of us, “Samuel Grest, but you can call me Sam.”

Evra took his hand and shook it, responding with his name and introducing mine. I would’ve taken Sam’s hand as well, but I was still listening out to see if there was something else around that could have made all the noise earlier.

“Darren, something wrong?” Evra asked, snapping me out of my train of thought.

“Yuh-yeah, just thought I heard something.” I did a glance over of the kid. He was around my age—maybe slightly younger. He had slightly messy, light brown hair, and a huge grin.

“I must’ve scared you good if you’re stuttering like that!” He boasted.

I chuckled, “Sure, sure you did.”

“So, why are you hanging around here, Sam? It’s not smart for a kid to be hanging around a freak show.” Evra asked.

“I heard all the noise and got curious. And if it’s not smart for kids to be hanging around, what are you two doing here?”

“We live with the cirque. It’s our home.” I explained before Evra could open his mouth.

“Really?! That’s so cool! I just have a normal family. I wish I had a family like yours!” He piped. I personally thought he acted a bit too joyful about a band of _freaks_ , but it didn’t seem to bother Evra, so I didn’t let it eat at me.

“Speaking of family, does yours know you’re out here, sniffing around at a freak show?” Evra asked, his voice both joking and serious.

“Mom doesn’t care where I go as long as I don’t get into trouble, and as long as I get home before dinner time.”

“Even so, it’s not too wise to hang around here.” I smirked devilishly, “What if we were evil and wanted to feed you to the wolfman?”

Evra caught the incoming prank and joined in. “Right. Your parents wouldn’t even know where to look for you if you just went missing. Don’t you think you should’ve kept that part to yourself?”

Sam let out a nervous chuckle, "You wouldn't do that." He noticed our expressions. "Wuh-would you?"

“I don’t know, would we?”

“Buh-but, you guys are nice people. You wouldn’t feed an innocent little kid to a monster.” Our expressions didn’t falter. “Ruh-ruh-right?”

Me and Evra cut each other a look, and then burst out laughing simultaneously. Sam cut us a look of both anger and relief.

“You were teasing me from the beginning!”

“Yep, and you fell for it easier than we thought you would!” Evra said through laughs.

“We wouldn’t feed you to the wolfman anyway. He just ate.” I added the last part to try and toy with Sam a bit more, which it did. He cut me a somewhat scared look until he realized I was joking.

“I’m not meaning to be rude, but how are you covered in scales, Evra? Are they real?” Sam asked. Somewhat intrigued by the snake-boy, as were most people who met him.

“It’s nothing.” Evra held out his arm to give Sam a better look. “All real. I’ve had them since I was born. Left to join the cirque when I was young. Been with them ever since.”

“Awesome! Can you communicate with snakes and stuff then?!” His face showed how excited he was about Evra.

“In a _sssenssse_.” He added a snakes hiss, though he hated that stereotype of when people met him. “My partner when I go on performance is my snake. So if I couldn’t communicate with her it’d be kinda hard.”

“You have a snake?!”

“You seem shocked by that.” I remarked, causing Sam to look at me.

“Mom never let me have a pet. So whenever I meet someone with a pet I always get curious.” He turned back to Evra. “Especially when it’s something as cool as a snake!”

“It’s not that cool.” Evra said. Brushing off the compliment. “So, would you like a tour around camp? Given you’re all the way out here and all. We’d hate to send you back without showing you around the place.”

“Is the Wuh-wolfman on the tour?” He asked. Looking scared at his mentioning of the beast.

Evra laughed, “Not if you don’t want him to be.” Sam looked relieved as he said that.

We walked Sam around, introducing him to the performers—the ones that weren’t getting ready for tonights show that is. Sam seemed especially interested in Evra’s snake out of all the performers. He asked Evra all kinds of questions about her—how old she was, how long she was, how often she ate.

“So, Darren, why are you part of the cirque? You’re not like the other fre— performers.” Sam asked as we were heading back to where we’d spotted him earlier.

I paused. _Because a vampire blooded me and tore me from my family, and we had no where else to go_ wasn’t going to cut it. “I never really perform. I’m more like a help. I dabble in magic tricks with cards, but that’s about it.”

“Do you think _I_ could join?!” His eyes glittered as he asked.

Me and Evra exchanged a worried glance. “I don’t think that would be such a good idea…” Evra said.

“But Darren’s here!”   
“I have a disorder where I don’t age right.” I lied. “My parents decided it would be easier for me to join the cirque than have to explain having a thirty year old son that looks seventeen. The cirque was in town. My parents talked it over with Mr. Tall, and here I am.”

“ _So?!_ I have tons of siblings, my parents wouldn’t miss having another mouth to feed! Pleeeease?”

“Darren.” I turned and looked at Evra. “A word?” I nodded and told Sam we’d be right back.

We walked over beside one of the vans. “What should we do?” Evra asked in a hushed tone.

“We could tell him bluntly.” Evra shook his head.

“I doubt he’d listen. He didn’t listen to your story of why you joined—well, he did. But it went in one ear and came out the other.”

“Maybe give him a ticket and see how he enjoys the show? I doubt he’d continue on with wanting to stay if he saw the wolfman in action at the beginning.”

He nodded. “But I think tonight’s show is already sold out. We could try and talk Mr. Tall into giving us one for tomorrow night’s show.” We were normally sold out altogether before we even arrived at the town, but it was a small area and few knew we were here.

“Oh crap! Darren, Evra, I have to get back home! It’s almost dinner time! I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow, OK?!” Sam called out. I heard his footsteps trample away as he rushed back home.

**Great. Because kids and the cirque mix so well.**

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with this spin-off idea back about four months ago while talking to a friend, and I'm just now starting on it. 
> 
> The original series has always been a favorite of mine (I love the author and have nearly all of his books), so I always wanted to have something to give back to it. And this is it.
> 
> I do thank you for reading, critiques and comments are welcomed!  
> -Tycusha (AKA Mitchie)


End file.
